Best free and simple live backup program?

[DougoMan]

I have a friend I am trying to set up an ongoing full backup of his computer onto an external hard drive. Can anyone recommend me a good, easy to use program?

 

[owensdj]

What do you mean by "live" backup? Do you mean something that backs up changes continuously?

 

[DougoMan]

Yes

 

[DougoMan]

I guess I could just use the windows 7 built in backup huh?

 

[xSauronx]

well that will do a scheduled backup and would work fine. honestly, at this point, i just have a copy of my files in onedrive and crashplan but i dont back up the system/software.

crashplan free will do a once daily backup to an external drive as well, and is fairly user friendly, if you dont like the windows built in for some reason

 

[Binky]

I assume by ongoing, you mean scheduled.

Macrium free will do scheduled backups, but i don't think the free version does differential or incremental backups.

WD and Seagate offer a free download of Acronis through their websites. If your friend has a WD or Seagate drive installed, check those versions to see if they offer scheduled backups.

You can also try other free image software from Paragon, etc.

If you're just looking for ongoing file copies, rather than full images, a batch file using xcopy, robocopy, or xxcopy can do this pretty easily.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Back up Windows itself through Macrium Reflect or Aomei Backupper, using an image file. You'd need to include the System Reserved partition if there is one as it contains the necessary boot files. Paragon Backup and Recovery is another good program. All of these are free.

Avoid incremental images if at all possible. Just do periodic full images, maybe weekly or monthly.

Back up personal data through an ordinary file by file copying program, not using an image. I use FreeFileSync, but there are several free programs that work similarly.

Try to talk your friend into putting his data on a different partition than Windows if he hasn't already done so.

 

[Chiefcrowe]

Just curious, why do you say to avoid incremental images?

Back up Windows itself through Macrium Reflect or Aomei Backupper, using an image file. You'd need to include the System Reserved partition if there is one as it contains the necessary boot files. Paragon Backup and Recovery is another good program. All of these are free.

Avoid incremental images if at all possible. Just do periodic full images, maybe weekly or monthly.

Back up personal data through an ordinary file by file copying program, not using an image. I use FreeFileSync, but there are several free programs that work similarly.

Try to talk your friend into putting his data on a different partition than Windows if he hasn't already done so.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Just curious, why do you say to avoid incremental images?

They are a complication to a process that is already not foolproof. If they work, no problem. If any of the individual incremental files is corrupted or missing, you aren't likely to be able to restore.

Why insert a complication and another point of failure into your recovery process, without some major over-riding reason?

If you think the advantage of incrementals outweighs the chances of complicating the process, go ahead. Maybe you have limited storage space or use images in an atypical way?

But if you don't have storage space issues and make images perhaps weekly or monthly, why take the chance?

Particularly if you are the type whose only personal data backup is through an image. I'd never do that anyway---incremental or full. Images just aren't a 100 percent reliable solution for anything. No big deal for your system (Windows) as that can always be re-installed and re-configured. A pain due to the time required, but doable. Not so with your data. If you lose your original versions of your data due to something like a drive failure and then find that your images won't restore or can't be explored, you are hosed.